New deepest pit in Tennessee!!!!

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Re: Not the deepest pit after all...

Postby Bill Putnam » Aug 24, 2007 9:48 pm

ACENTHAHOLE wrote:I guess you are referring to measuring a pit from top to bottom. Well then, if we measured this pit from top to bottom it would spray fart on Mystery Falls and possibly even Incredible, as you can't see the top of the pit with any light, not even an HID. Blackness. And the pit is located on a major fault.


Well, that seems pretty rude - disrespecting a fine cavern like Mystery Falls that way. You really seem to have a big chip on your shoulder about something. Are you feeling OK? Maybe just a little tense? Maybe you should take a weekend off from caving and plant flowers or something to decompress. :tonguecheek:

ACENTHAHOLE wrote:We are surveying right now and will have access to a disto at some point, then we'll measure the pit from top to bottom at some 400'+ just to keep ya'll happy.


I'll be interested to hear about it when you do. But it'll still be a Dome-Pit.
:grin:
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Postby Realms » Aug 24, 2007 9:58 pm

heh heh we could light it for you :grin:
never stop imagining what could someday come to pass...
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Re: measuring Mystery

Postby Dwight Livingston » Aug 24, 2007 10:01 pm

jprouty wrote:Even if the tape wasn't perfectly vertical though, tape stretch and angle would only serve to increase our measurements, not decrease.


Tape stretch will decrease what you measure, so you'll get a figure that's shorter than it should be. Tape sag, on the other hand, will increase your measure.

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Re: Not the deepest pit after all...

Postby Bill Putnam » Aug 24, 2007 10:04 pm

ACENTHAHOLE wrote: If you want to compare this apple to another, compare it to Fantastic, it is exactly the same situation. Oh no, don't you dare say that fantastic is not 600' or anywhere near it. I just did. According to you, Fantastic is not the second deepest pit in the U.S. So, as long as Fantastic is the second deepest in the US, then #@%#$ Well will be the deepest in TN. Let this be your intervention.


Like the warden said, "What we have here is a failure to comunicate."

You missed my whole point, Ace. I wasn't saying the your pit isn't a 285 - I was saying that Mystery is a 316. If and when you get a higher rig point in your special super-secret commando pit, maybe it will push Mystery into second place, but until then you're still sucking second teat on the sow.

ACENTHAHOLE wrote: Now, how many arm chair cavers does it take to figure this one out?


Hey! Who you callin' an "armchair caver"? Them's fightin' words down here! :boxing:
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Postby Brad Tipton » Aug 24, 2007 11:16 pm

2 years ago, on a whim I taped Mystery Falls at 281 from the lip of the waterfall and 286 from the bolts on the wall above the waterfall. That was a freefall drop to the floor where the rope lands from that rigpoint. The tape was pulled tight. We didn't tape the pit from the rigpoint under the cap. I am in no way an expert at taping pit depths, we just did it out of curiosity. Just figured I would toss in that tidbit for fun.

Both pits are TAG classics, regardless of depth.


Flame ON!!
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Postby NZcaver » Aug 24, 2007 11:35 pm

All this talk of tape - don't any of you enthusiastic surveyers have your own Distos? :question:
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Postby ACENTHAHOLE » Aug 25, 2007 3:23 am

I never intended to beat my chest. I only started this thread to make an announcement. I never even mentioned my name. I didn't care. Somehow I got sidetracked in to this crap. Everyone I have spoken to says 285' is the deepest. That leads me to believe 285' is the deepest. You are the first person ever to tell me that Mystery is 316'. If Mystery is 316', fine. I won't argue with the facts. I just want to explore and find new stuff, map it and make it available to the rest of the caving community. More than anything I just want to find out where all that air is running off to.
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Postby tncaver » Aug 25, 2007 5:19 am

Good luck finding where the air goes. Probably down deeper but
who knows. Maybe up and down a bunch of domes before it makes
its way to a master trunk.
As for all the flack you've been getting ACENTHAHOLE, I think that
is due to your method of presentation.
Later, I'm gone caving.
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Go for it!

Postby Ronaldo » Aug 25, 2007 7:56 am

Good luck with your quest acenthehole! Say hey to Drew C. and Jason R for me if they are still around. I have a large group photo for Drew that I will bring to TAG to give to him. It is from a discovery trip in TAG last year. I will try to call him before then.
Last year at the cave in he and his buddies caved so late every day that they were not around till 3:00am each day. I hope he will get his priorities straight this year and be there in the evenings to PARTY! You can cave till 3am anytime.... :bananaguitar:
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Postby Bill Putnam » Aug 25, 2007 7:58 am

ACENTHAHOLE wrote:I never intended to beat my chest. I only started this thread to make an announcement. I never even mentioned my name. I didn't care. Somehow I got sidetracked in to this crap. Everyone I have spoken to says 285' is the deepest. That leads me to believe 285' is the deepest. You are the first person ever to tell me that Mystery is 316'. If Mystery is 316', fine. I won't argue with the facts. I just want to explore and find new stuff, map it and make it available to the rest of the caving community. More than anything I just want to find out where all that air is running off to.


Hey, Ace: I didn't mean to dump on you - just pokin' a little fun, as we say. You guys did some great work in Chambliss, and this pit project is pretty cool as well. It's all about having some fun and finding more cave, so keep on pushing those leads! :kewl:

I don't know who you've been talking to about Mystery, but it's only 286 (or whatever) from the lowest rig point, and is recorded that way according to the TCS standard practice. for pit depths. Mark Wolinsky published an article about the history of the cave along with the map when it was completed many years ago. I think it was in the Speleonews, and I know it was in the Journal of Spelean History.

It seems like the young bucks don't read history any more - I wonder why? Is that an American thing or is it true in Europe as well? When I started caving I read everything I could get my hands on about the history of caving, including the classics like Subterranean Climbers, Ten Years Under the Earth, Memoirs of a Speleologist, One Tousand Meters Down, and many more.

Reading history gives you a sense of perspective. When you consider that Pierre Chevalier and Fernad Petzl and company explored and surveyed what became the deepest known cave in the world from the bottom up, with scaling poles, in occupied France during WWII, dodging the Germans to avoid being drafted into the German army or thrown in jail or worse, it makes our little weekend adventures seem kind of pale in comparison. Those were some real hardcore cavers.
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The jackal can roar,
pretending to be a lion.
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Postby ACENTHAHOLE » Aug 25, 2007 10:40 pm

Bill Putnam wrote:
ACENTHAHOLE wrote:I never intended to beat my chest. I only started this thread to make an announcement. I never even mentioned my name. I didn't care. Somehow I got sidetracked in to this crap. Everyone I have spoken to says 285' is the deepest. That leads me to believe 285' is the deepest. You are the first person ever to tell me that Mystery is 316'. If Mystery is 316', fine. I won't argue with the facts. I just want to explore and find new stuff, map it and make it available to the rest of the caving community. More than anything I just want to find out where all that air is running off to.


Hey, Ace: I didn't mean to dump on you - just pokin' a little fun, as we say. You guys did some great work in Chambliss, and this pit project is pretty cool as well. It's all about having some fun and finding more cave, so keep on pushing those leads! :kewl:

I don't know who you've been talking to about Mystery, but it's only 286 (or whatever) from the lowest rig point, and is recorded that way according to the TCS standard practice. for pit depths. Mark Wolinsky published an article about the history of the cave along with the map when it was completed many years ago. I think it was in the Speleonews, and I know it was in the Journal of Spelean History.

It seems like the young bucks don't read history any more - I wonder why? Is that an American thing or is it true in Europe as well? When I started caving I read everything I could get my hands on about the history of caving, including the classics like Subterranean Climbers, Ten Years Under the Earth, Memoirs of a Speleologist, One Tousand Meters Down, and many more.

Reading history gives you a sense of perspective. When you consider that Pierre Chevalier and Fernad Petzl and company explored and surveyed what became the deepest known cave in the world from the bottom up, with scaling poles, in occupied France during WWII, dodging the Germans to avoid being drafted into the German army or thrown in jail or worse, it makes our little weekend adventures seem kind of pale in comparison. Those were some real hardcore cavers.


I was kinda done with this discussion. Even after reading up on the history of Mystery. But now that you bring it up. We didn't bore down 30-40' to get to the high rig point. I guess we could if were dumb enough. And also this project has nothing to do with a deep pit. That just kinda happened all on it's own. Sure Mystery is 316', if you consider mines, train tunnels, sewer pipes, wine caves, my basement, and a hole in the ground caves. I'm surprised anyone even bothered making that claim. Mystery can still be the deepest for now at 286', only a foot deeper than The Well, I don't care.
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Dude!

Postby Bill Putnam » Aug 26, 2007 5:43 pm

Hey Ace: Have a cold one and chill! You seem kinda tense. :beer30:
Last edited by Bill Putnam on Aug 27, 2007 12:34 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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New deepest pit

Postby KENTO » Aug 27, 2007 12:04 pm

Someone please refresh my memory, what is the depth of the Gouffre...I thought I remembered a claimed 300' depth, guess I will have to hit the back issues of the NSS News.
also, did not some TAG cavers open a deathtrap of a 295' pit called Sod/Clodhole??? about 14 years back...? It had a tendency to shift dirt rocks in the small orifice of an entrance as they were rigging in to rappell.
Even if it was collapsed shut and violently offlimits per wishes of a landowner this wouldn't disqualify it from being 10 feet deeper than the " New Deepest Pit In Tennessee, I think this is recorded in a SERA guidebook maybe. I of course would shut my mouth in deference to those " who were there "...
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Postby Brad Tipton » Aug 27, 2007 8:13 pm

I believe the Gouffre is 241 feet.

There is a Clod Hole in Battle Creek, it is 188 feet deep of which all 188 feet is against the wall in a 4x4 foot shaft. Rocks rain during the entire ascent. Good Times!
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Re: measuring Mystery

Postby cavemanjonny » Sep 4, 2007 8:36 am

Dwight wrote:Tape stretch will decrease what you measure, so you'll get a figure that's shorter than it should be.


Ah, right you are! I was thinking the actual length will increase. I didn't consider the fact that that means the spacing between the numbers stretches too :-).
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